1. Technical Field of the Invention
The invention is related to a short message transmission in a telecommunications network.
2. Description of Related Art
In addition to speech connections, telecommunications networks provide data services like short message services (SMS). SMS allows the transmission of alphanumerical short messages of up to 160 ASCII characters from a sender to a receiver.
To enable the transmission of a short message, the telecommunications network comprises a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) that co-operates with Control Nodes such as the Mobile Services Switching Centre (MSC) or the Serving General Packet Radio System Support Node (SGSN).
The SMSC is a node via which short messages are transmitted and can be stored for later transmission in the case the receiving party is not reached at a first attempt. Short messages are transmitted via one or more MSCs interfacing to the Short Message Service Centre: the SMS Inter-Working MSC (SMS-IWMSC) and the SMS Gateway MSC (SMS-GMSC). The term Inter-Working MSC refers to an MSC submitting mobile originated messages, and correspondingly, the term Gateway MSC refers to an MSC delivering mobile terminating short messages.
In the state of the art, the charging of the transmission of a short message takes place when the short message has successfully arrived at the SMSC. The SMSC signals the successful receipt of the short message to a network node that is responsible for the initiation of the charging procedure. Said network node can be for example an MSC or a Service Control Point. The network node will initiate the creation of a Service Call Detail Record for the short message including a short message identifier and the amount that is charged for the transmission. The Call Detail Records are stored in a Call Detail Record Storage Unit. A Post-Processing Unit collects all Service Call Detail Records and calculates the actual billing of the short message transmission. An example of a possible implementation of the charging procedure is described in the PCT patent application WO03/024135. WO03/024135 relates to a method in a mobile telecommunications network of controlling charging procedures for message services which enable transport of messages from a sender to an SMSC, the method comprising transporting a message from the sender for example via a network node (MSC) to the SMSC, temporarily storing the message at the SMSC, sending a first confirmation acknowledging receipt of the message at an SMSC to the sender, and, if the sender acknowledges receipt of the first confirmation, routing the message from the SMSC to a recipient of the message and initiating a charging procedure for a message.
The method of WO03/024135 has the shortcoming that the charging procedure for the short message is initiated as soon as the reception of the short message by the SMSC has been acknowledged. After the charging procedure has started, the short message is forwarded to the receiving party. However, the delivery of the short message to the receiving party might not be successful. One possible reason for failure of the delivery is that the receiver of the short message has not attached to the telecommunications network within a predefined time, i.e. the validity period of the short message, after the submission of the short message. This leads to the drawback that the subscriber is charged for short messages that cannot be delivered to the receiving party.